tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35743239.post8045993283217966979..comments2024-03-29T03:43:45.977-04:00Comments on Of Battered Aspect: Compassion FailureDave Hingsburgerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11918601687946534172noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35743239.post-32809515550430410572018-06-03T15:20:51.179-04:002018-06-03T15:20:51.179-04:00In general, I think it actually takes work for an ...In general, I think it actually takes work for an averagely empathic human to _suppress_ empathy.<br /><br />That's not trivial. It means that there's a strong-enough reason to do that work, and that reason is seldom likely to be a good one.<br /><br />I have a notion that one potent reason to suppress compassion is that we have developed a societal myth that emotions are to be treated as Things, quasi-facts, determinants of what we do next. (I'm of the firm view that emotions are information, to be weighed against other information. Certainly, they're much less troublesome when treated that way.) Thing-ifying emotion has odd effects: if emotions were determinants, that ought, it seems, to make compassion all the more compelling, but it doesn't seem to be the result (except in a certain sentimentalising and not-entirely-real way).<br /><br />Instead, we've come to harbour the really rather odd idea that compassion and annoyance are incompatible.† Choose one! So, in order to feel what we feel, we have to suppress what we also feel.<br /><br />It would have been perfectly unremarkable for the collective sigh to be followed‡ by a collective "I really hope he's going to be o.k." (I hope it silently was). There's no especial reason why that shouldn't be followed by a mixture of empathy for the individual and annoyance at the universe's disdain for plans - which, if allowed *without* the extra effort of suppressing empathy, probably would have been shorter-lived, or at least less troubling. One's seldom so annoyed as when one suspects one isn't _quite_ in the right.<br /><br />------------------------------<br /><br />†In the case of someone's being taken suddenly ill, empathy and blame certainly are incompatible. Annoyance, however, isn't intrinsically blame: it's an information point. Blame is more of a decision.<br /><br />‡ We're self-involved mammals, not Bodhisattvas.Lucyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17437730982427135335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35743239.post-27795889817308165242018-06-03T11:30:31.377-04:002018-06-03T11:30:31.377-04:00Same here: there is often work to be done after th...Same here: there is often work to be done after the automatic responses jump in and stomp all over something.<br /><br />At least I catch myself now.ABEhrhardthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17211038591900883672noreply@blogger.com